


Alone Above A Raging Sea

by something_safe



Category: Bandom, MCR - Fandom, My Chemical Romance, The Used, my chem - Fandom, summer of like - Fandom, taste of chaos - Fandom
Genre: Comedy, F/F, Girl On Girl, Revenge Era, Revenge Era MCR, Robert-Smith levels of sadness, adolescent moping, but mostly goofy happiness, girl!MCR - Freeform, mikey way being sassy little sister, too many cure references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:09:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_safe/pseuds/something_safe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the Summer of Like and Gee Way and Roberta McCracken are still the demonic duo. Sometimes. When they've not fallen out. About nothing. Mikey fixes everything, like always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone Above A Raging Sea

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old fic I wrote for a friend, I'm reposting it because I am bored. :D

*

Gee lights another cigarette and sucks slowly until the cherry flares; sits quietly with her headphones on and watches the crowds of people milling around outside the van, going about their business lit up by chunky beams of sunlight that have slid through the gaps of trees and branches, dimmed by the van windows like they’re filtering through water. The van is parked on the edges of the thinning forest (which is a pretty grandiose term for ‘trees at the edge of the highway’) where it opens up into flat ground and it’s so hot out that Gee can’t even bring herself to move. She doesn’t want to, too buzzed and too drunk and too tired to bother. She hasn’t showered in a week and she ran out of birth control yesterday and she’s not started her period yet but she can feel her body overriding whatever chemical alteration she’s made to it like, oh what, still no babies? Bloody panties for you.

 

She scowls at the thought and takes a drag on her smoke, switching the song on her iPod and trying to settle. The beer bottle between her thighs makes a friendly gulping sound as she shifts and she picks it up; takes a draught and shuffles further down on the seat with her head against one of the tinted windows and her feet hitting the far door of the van. She can still hear people outside. She dials up the volume and thinks shut the fuck up before she downs the rest of her beer and moves to get another from the crate in the footwell.

 

Then she’s finally comfortable, or as comfortable as you can be when you have a Xanax headache starting at the base of your skull, eyes closed and shades on and beer resting on her stomach as she lets the noise wash over her. The world disappears for a few minutes, takes her away from her aching back and greasy hair and the fact that today is just not a good day, just leaves her with a solid shark cage of noise around her.

 

*

 

She starts awake when she feels something against her legs. Her eyes slide open and it’s still sunny outside, hot blocks of orange light picking Mikey out as she slides into the back of the van, pushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear and ignoring it as it immediately flops back in front of it. They watch each other for a moment, Gee struck with the thought that her playlist has ended and she can pretty much hear the world again and Mikey just watching her impassively through her shades, but it does seem a little quieter maybe; not so many people blurring by the windows. Mikey continues to stare her out while Gee weighs up the pros and cons of acknowledging her. Seconds tick by, and Gee breaks, she always does.

 

“What?” she says, pulling down her headphones, trying not to sound as irrationally grouchy as she feels. Mikey tips her head a bit.

 

 

“This place is normally a campsite, so there’s a shower block here. I thought you might want to go. Seeing as this whole van smells like crotch funk. Queue’s not too big at the minute, everyone’s watching shows.”

 

“You’re all heart.” Gee sits up a little and crosses her legs under her so Mikey can climb into the van properly and shut the door behind her; shut the sunlight out a little with the tinted windows. Even with that and sunglasses muting the brightness, Gee’s eyes still ache. Still quiet, Mikey reaches out and touches at her sister’s calf, rubbing awkwardly. It’s more like an embrace, coming from her. Mouth twitching in an almost smile, she tilts her head and pushes up her shades.

 

“Bobbie’s already there, Frank too. You should go while it’s quiet.”

 

Pulling a face in reply, Gee draws up a shoulder.

 

“I dunno, maybe I’ll wait...”

 

“You smell gross, Gee. You have to go shower. Me and Rae did a load of laundry the other day and I can lend you a clean shirt, okay? She even did you some underwear.”

 

Saint Rae, Gee thinks appreciatively, the promise of clean pants swaying her a little. She chews her lip then nods.

 

“Okay. You coming?”

 

“And risk seeing you naked? No. I’m going to hang out with Pete.”

 

“Oh, okay.”

 

Sitting up slowly, Gee takes off her headphones, downs the rest of her now lukewarm beer and starts to slide out of the van after Mikey, making a mental note to make fun of her sister’s intitials being M.J. and her dating a geeky boy called Peter later, then grabbing a bag from the trunk and starting to shove a few things into it: soap, some sachets of shampoo she stole from the last motel they were in and a towel. Mikey digs her out some clothes too, even jeans that don’t smell like someone’s vagina died in them, and Gee shoulders the bag before letting Mikey take her elbow and guide her through the festival grounds and the throngs of people, towards the shower block. It’s quite a walk but that’s okay; the movement is making Gee’s back ache less, making her feel less stiff and lethargic.

 

“Gee, you shouldn’t be out in this heat, you’ll burst into flames.”

 

She looks up as Frank waves at her from the doorway of the block. She’s just in a bikini top and some denim shorts and she looks like a punk pinup, buzzed hair wet from her shower and her skin glowing in the light, ink stark and gorgeous. Gee turns pink, as usual a little awed and a little jealous of Frank’s ridiculous amounts of beautiful, and shrugs up a shoulder.

 

“I’m gonna melt when I hit the water anyway so either way I’m toast.” She smiles and offers Frank a cigarette as she gets out one for herself. Frank accepts and so does Mikey – in fact Mikey takes two and then grins and wanders off. Gee really needs to learn not to offer.

 

“Thanks,” Frank says, lighting up, “and anyway, we’ll bring you back by throwing some virgin blood on your corpse or something.”

 

“I don’t think that brings vampires back,” Gee says uncertainly, lighting up herself and rearranging her hoodie a bit so she looks a little less like a flabby dork next to Frank, the big fucking kangaroo boyfriend to Frank’s tiny Tank Girl. “I mean, I think the sun is pretty much the end for them isn’t it?”

 

“No way,” Frank grins and picks at her black painted nails, giving a goofy laugh, “that’s just something people make up to make themselves feel better. Vampires are totally immortal.”

 

“So the silver stake thing?”

 

“A total myth. Where would you find a silver stake anyway? In what world would someone have found something pointy and made of silver in the midst of a vampire attack and stabbed them with it? ‘Oh, by jove, that did the trick far better than luring them here with the promise of virgin sluts if they agree to let us kill them’.”

 

“’By jove’? What the fuck?”

 

“Everyone in the history of ever talks like that. I’ve seen it in films,” Frankie says confidently.

 

“I guess so.” Gee wrinkles her nose; she doesn’t really guess so. She doesn’t even know why they’re having this conversation. Whatever. She nods to the showers. “Anyone in there?”

 

“Bobbie’s still in there but she’s almost done, I think she’s going the whole shebang, she took razors in too.”

 

Gee makes a wistful noise. She can’t remember the last time she shaved anywhere. Not that she feels like she has to alter the natural state of her body to fit in with societal perceptions of beauty or anything (except if she doesn’t, she certainly doesn’t know why she feels so guilty about being hungry, ever,) but jeez, it’d be nice not to feel like a yeti every once in a while.

 

“Does she have any more?”

 

“Dunno dude, ask her.”

 

“I will after this.”

 

They keep smoking for a couple of minutes, getting sucked back into the ins and outs of the probability of vampire vanquishing methods being true (there is a very interesting conversation about how they have sex which makes Gee feel suitably twitchy and weirded out. Who cares?! They’re made up! She’s ninety per cent sure of it), and then she flicks away her roach and goes into the showers with a little “wish me luck” that makes Frank snort and choke on smoke.

 

“We’ll keep some grave dirt on hand.”

 

Bobbie is in there, brushing her teeth in her bra and jeans, making Gee recoil at the thought of taking her clothes off while she’s in here. Why is she always surrounded by hot people.

 

“Hey,” Bob says thickly, then spits into the sink before straightening, so Gee can really feel like shit over the curve of her waist and her pretty, fair skin. Freckles, Jesus. “I’ve got your toothbrush here, if you want it.”

 

“What you’re using it?”

 

“Ew, no. It’s in my washbag.”

 

“Why’ve you got my toothbrush, Bob?”

 

“I like rubbing it on my nipples. Also you left it in my room last time we were in a motel.”

 

Gee pulls a face and mutters, “Gross,” toeing off her sneakers and kicking them against the step of a shower cubicle. Bob grins and rinses her mouth out, wiping her face and brushing back her hair and pulling on a vest and then a plaid shirt.

 

“I’ll leave it on top of your stuff when I go, yeah?”

 

“Thanks. That’d be good. Nipple brush. Love that.” Gee steps into a cubicle and pulls the door closed, bolting it and then pulling off her hoodie after a moment’s hesitation. “Hey, Frank says you have razors.”

 

Bob’s voice echoes off the tiles as she replies over the sound of water running, tone slightly amused.

 

“I do have razors. What’re they worth?”

 

“Uh...” Gee thinks about it for a minute. “A cigarette? The fact you just made me scared to use my toothbrush? Did I mention the cigarette?”

 

“Just one?”

 

“I’ve only got three left.”

 

“One and share the last?”

 

“Okay.” Gee nods to herself and then jumps when the razor comes flying over the top of the door, hitting the wall before clattering to the floor. Gee shoves her bag out under the cubicle door with her smokes on the top and puts her towel over the top of the door, folded up so it doesn’t get soaked. “Thanks.”

 

“S’okay.”

 

Gerard listens to the faint rustle of clothing as she tries to get herself organised; gets out her sachet of shampoo and tears it because she sure as fuck can’t do it with wet fingers; turns on the water and stands back so she doesn’t get the initial colder-than-ice or hotter-than-hell shock. Bob is still in here, she knows, hovering without being asked so that Gee isn’t alone in the shower block. Not like any of them immediately think that alone=rape alert or anything, but it’s still appreciated; they’ve had shit stolen before now and they’re running out of stuff they can be without. Then she’s ducking under the water, making a disdainful little noise when the jet is colder than she’d like and the tiles more slippery. Either way it’s nice to smell soap again. Gee isn’t the cleanest of the band but even she has to admit it’s been too long, especially with the weather being what it is.

 

“Brian says The Used are here,” Bob says mildly, interrupting the soothing hiss of the water and Gee’s damp breaths through her nose as she rinses out soap. She makes a curious noise in response and Bob continues. “Y’know. That chick you liked so much when you met her. I saw them earlier. I think their bendy little bassist was hitting on Frank.”

 

“Who doesn’t hit on Frank? Bitch gets an offer every second.” Gee mutters wryly, closing her eyes under the water and humming when it gets warmer and smiling when Bob laughs. She really wishes she had the confidence to put on a bathing suit today too; to own it like every other hot bitch in her band. Even Mikey is rocking half a shirt today. And Rae always looks fucking gorgeous. Maybe, Gee thinks to herself, she should cut down on food. They don’t eat that much as it is but if she could just trim down a little bit then. Maybe. Maybe then she’d see Bert and she’d look her up and down with those pale eyes of hers and smile like a wolf that way she does and she’d do it because she liked what she saw. Bert. She’d forgotten she’d be here the next leg of the tour. The thought makes her stomach do that sick lurch, like the feeling you get when you trip up the stairs. She sighs to herself. She fucking hates being surrounded by pretty people all the time.

 

“What? You’re one to talk,” Bob says, cutting her out of her reverie. Shit, did she say that out loud? “There’s not a person around here who doesn’t double take when you walk by.”

 

Gee snorts, her incredulity tangible in her voice.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

“You fuck off,” Bob retorts, “I’m serious. You’re the one on the magazines, Gee. You’re the one they always print those big stupid posters of wearing absurd corsets. Stop putting yourself down. You’re gorgeous.”

 

Gee is silent for a long time, frowning to herself as she soaps up and gets to work with the razor. She hates these lectures she gets periodically. From everyone. Maybe she’d just feel better in herself if she wasn’t such a chunk style. It’s not about what anyone else thinks. Whatever.

 

“Don’t, Bobs. You know I hate it.”

 

“I’m just saying, you go on all the time about how fat you are and how gross you look – you’re just normal. You’re the same size as any of us. If anything, you’re better. Frank goes on all the time about how she wishes she had more tits and more hips. You’ve got that. And your stupid skinny legs and your fucking face, Gee. Don’t be crazy.”

 

Bob’s voice is a little abrupt but Gee knows she means well. She looks down at herself doubtfully, at the stretchmarks on her thighs, pale scars on her stomach and the tops of her arms, the round of her belly and breasts that are just a little too small to be proportional to her hips but too big to be considered ‘pert’ or whatever that gross word is they use in magazines. She wrinkles her nose and rubs her eye frustratedly with the knuckle of a razor-occupied finger, trying not to lop off one of her eyebrows in the process: her other hand is covered in soap.

 

“Sure. Thanks.”

 

Bob makes a frustrated sound. Any second now she’s going to get all sincere and Gee must avoid that at All Costs.

 

“Gee...”

 

“Do you think I should shave my bikini line?”

 

“What-? Uh - ew...”

 

“Well I just mean. Maybe I’d smell less or something.”

 

“Gee I don’t even wanna know-!”

 

“I think I will. All of it. Yeah. Can I borrow your nail scissors?”

 

“What?! Fuck you-!”

 

“Fine then but it’ll take longer like this.”

 

“I fucking hate you.”

 

“Hand ‘em over, blondie.”

 

*

 

Gee is just about done getting dressed and hastily smearing on some make up when she hears the unmistakable wake of Bert approaching from outside. It’s not exactly hard: she’s singing loudly and it bounces through the open door, some mocking, loopy version of a Hip Hop song that automatically has Frank howling with laughter. Gee braces herself for the impact as Bert’s voice becomes a solid ball that forces itself through the door of the shower block and then she’s there behind her, larger than life even at five foot nothing, tangled, matted hair falling way down her back and her pale, electric eyes made huge with black eyeshadow. She’s still singing, but softer now, eerie and quiet as she steps closer to Gee’s back. She’s inexplicably reminded of a siren, and she smiles even as she wrinkles her nose in the mirror and automatically starts putting on more eyeliner, ignoring the fact that she’s just in her t-shirt and jeans and that Bert can see her arms. And she can see them, Gee knows, knows just by the way that her singing has quietened and her heavy gaze on Gee’s back that she’s taking in her appearance. This silent evaluation is confirmed when, after a minute, Bert wolf-whistles, the fucker, and noses into Gee’s hair. She’s fucking drowning already.

 

“Gigi, babe, you lookin’ a million bucks,” she drawls goofily, laughing at her own lameness and coming up behind Gee to hook her chin against her shoulder and wrap her thin arms around her middle in a hug. She’s gorgeous, skinny and tattooed and sharp like Frankie, but there’s something different about her, about her loose hanging dress – though it looks more like a negligee - and her thigh high socks and the painted red smile of her full mouth that makes her softer than that. Her face is so little next to Gee’s, too, her nose tiny and her eyes so blue that Gee feels like a failed, muddy hued Polaroid next to a work of art. Bert has stripes of red in her hair, woven in amongst the half-dreaded chunks of it, and she just looks fucking beautiful, like always. Fuck, she’s missed her. Gee smiles nervously and rubs at her eyes out of anxiety, smearing her eyeliner all to hell.

 

“Says you...” she replies shyly, drawing one shoulder up under her ear. Bert beams at her in the mirror and their eyes meet, just for a second, before she’s leaning close and licking a stripe over Gee’s ear.

 

Okay, so she hasn’t missed all of her.

 

“Bert-! Fuck!”

 

“Michelle says you’re sad.” Bert whispers against Gee’s wet ear, then smiles and promptly wipes it for her with a lock of her damp hair. “Thought we should grab some beers. Go hang. Talk. Plus I bet Jeph twenty she couldn’t get in Frank’s knickers and she says I have to draw the rest of you away so you don’t do that velociraptor thing you do.”

 

“What-?” Gee doesn’t even have time to absorb all of that before Bert starts grabbing things off her and the counter, shoving them back into Gee’s bag.

 

“Y’know, you all station yourselves in a pentagram so that you have high vantage and that,” she explains, pausing to examine a tube of lipstick that Gee never uses, popping the cap and beaming at the bright pink. “You’re the leader because you’ve got a big claw on your left foot. Mikey’s the lookout, Bob is extra muscle and Rae is the herder. Hey. C’mere.”

 

“I don’t want-” Gee goes silent as Bert swipes the colour across her bottom lip, the feel of it waxy and thick. It’s bright, very bright, and Gee moves automatically to wipe it off.

 

“Oi! Fuck off-!” Bert grabs her wrist and then her chin, tipping it up so she can cover her upper lip. “Press. You so pretty, Gina-gee. Such a pretty mouth. Show it off for me. Let me see what you look like without your Day of the Dead face paint, huh? Not that it’s not great but. You don’t need it. Like it when I can see your skin.”

 

Without really knowing why, Gee obediently presses her lips, and then blots the lipstick on the underside of Bert’s wrist when she presents it to her wordlessly. Pleased, she lifts her hand and strokes fingers through Gee’s hair, eyes fond. “See. Look how pretty you are. Now I just gotta get you naked and we’ll be golden.”

 

Gee rolls her eyes at that. She doesn’t get why Bert does this thing, oh you’re so pretty, oh I wanna fuck you, oh I wanna see you naked because she blatantly doesn’t, why would she. Sighing, she shrugs.

 

“Too late now. I just showered. Shaved and everything. You shoulda been there.”

 

Bert pauses at that. Smiles and continues shoving Gee’s things into her backpack for a moment, and then: “well we can shower again later. So beer, yeah? And hangs. When’s your show? It’s at seven right? Holy shit you guys are doing so great. I’m gonna watch. Can I watch? Can I flash you my tits from the crowd? If you want I can introduce you with my trumpet; I bought it with me.”

 

She’s all over the place, her funny, mosquito voice jumping up and down as she flips through the catalogue of her ‘things I am thinking right now this second’. Gee just nods and smiles, mentally shrugging to herself: it’s easiest just to agree.

 

“Sounds good,” she says, fumbling her almost spent packet of smokes out of her back pocket and sighing at its pitiful contents. Bert grins and offers her bag.

 

“Where’s my hoodie-?” Gee starts, but Bert just gives her a serious look.

 

“Gee, you don’t need it. It’s roasting outside, you’ll get sunstroke. And the only thing that’s allowed to stroke you around here is me.”

 

Bert guides her outside and Gee tries not to feel overly condescended, looking at Frankie as they emerge into the bright sunlight and smiling.

 

“Hey Gee. Nice lipstick,” Frank says softly, like ‘no big deal’. Gee smiles and feels like an idiot.

 

“I’ll probably take it off-”

 

“No you won’t!” Bert interrupts, prodding her sharply and then grabbing her hand. “Stop that. You have to wear it so I don’t look so stupid wearing mine around all these dykes.”

 

Frank rolls her eyes and thumps Bert.

 

“Don’t talk about Bobbie like that.”

 

“Huh?” Bob looks up from where she’s hunched on the steps of the shower block, reading a book. She’d gotten bored of waiting for Gee to finish shaving and promised to guard the shower with her life before she’d gone outside to enjoy the sun. She looks like she’s catching it too, the crests of her shoulders pink where she’s tied her shirt around her waist, already blossoming more freckles.

 

“Bert called you a dyke,” Frank clarifies. Bob looks at Bert and raises one blonde eyebrow.

 

“Gold star,” she says dryly. Bert beams in response, leaning down and pressing a noisy, red kiss to her cheek.

 

“Just looking out for my homies.”

 

“Word.”

 

Gee stands and watches this nonsensical display, wondering idly where Mikey’s gone. Rae for that matter. She doesn’t know why but she always feels weird watching Bert with the rest of the girls. With anyone really. Something about it makes her stomach clench unpleasantly. Okay she does know. Whatever, she tries to delude herself sometimes. Who doesn’t.

 

“Where’s Rae?” she asks eventually, if only to distract herself from Bert climbing onto Bob’s shoulders and shrieking in delight when Bob discovers she’s not wearing underwear. “I might go find her. Not seen her all day.”

 

“With Brian I think, she was checking out the tech for the show,” Frank says, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at the sight of Bert pulling her skirt over Bob’s face and giggling manically. She glances back at Gee when she moves to finally take a cigarette out of the pack in her hand and seems suddenly more interested in that, watching her face closely. She gets a frown for her efforts.

 

“What th’fuck’re you looking at?” Gee mutters, more harshly than she meant to. To her credit, Frank just shrugs and smiles to herself, rubbing at her arms and looking over to where Jepha is standing with Quinn and Brandon, her expression curious.

 

“Nothin’. Just wondered why you’re so ready to get away, that’s all,” she says, but her attention is wandering, eyes on Jepha and her bad hair and nice, nice body.

 

“I’m not...” Gee offers lamely, but there’s no real point. Bert is goofing off with Bob and Frank is making big eyes and Mikey is away with her pint sized boy thing and Rae is probably off being a genius while Brian looks at her in that quiet, appraising way he has and. Fuck. She wishes she’d never left the van.

 

“I’ll be right back,” she says, and doesn’t stop to look if anyone notices. Her bag goes back in the van and she almost grabs another hoodie from the trunk but it really is hot, and the Maiden shirt she’s got on covers up the tops of her arms anyway. She’ll live. She’s off then, putting her headphones back on and wandering for a bit, picking her way through the quietest parts of the grounds, avoiding the milling merch stands and tattoo stalls until she gets to the talent tent behind what she assumes to be the stage they’re playing later. She spots Brian from a way off, gesticulating wildly at something. Rae is there too, perched on the edge of a table, cup of beer beside her. She’s cradling a guitar, long fingers tinkering while she twists the pegs, obviously tuning up for later. Gee flashes her pass at security (feeling like an asshole for doing so) and goes to join them, pulling down her headphones.

 

“Hey,” she says quietly, almost expecting no one to look around. Rae glances up though, her long eyelashes glowing white in the light, and smiles warmly. She never wears any make up, but fuck, like she has to with a face like that.

 

“Hey!” she says happily, and her grin is kind of impossible not to replicate. “You look so great! That lipstick is awesome.”

 

“Thanks.” Slumping down next to her on the table, Gee gives her an appreciative glance and leans to pluck a string on the guitar in her lap, just to be annoying really. It’s a habit; all of them try subconsciously to be the one that makes Rae say a bad word about any one of them. None of them have ever succeeded. “What y’been doing?”

 

“Eh, we were looking over some stuff, discussing whether we’d be able to afford to rent a bus soon. We think we might be able to, if the new album does good.”

 

“Yeah, when we get around to recording it.”

 

“Well yeah. But yeah, so I’ve just been doing that and then Brian was like, freaking out about Quinn Allman getting into a fight with some reporter for AP and I dunno, just. There’s been a lot of. Y’know. Things to do.”

 

Gee looks sideways at her and grins a bit at the colour rising in Rae’s cheeks. She nudges at her in a friendly way.

 

“Oh yeah. A lot of ‘things’ to do.”

 

“Yep. Anyway.” Rae looks up again, smiling sweetly. “What’s up? You look down.”

 

“I’m not,” Gee says automatically, then she shrugs at Rae’s eyebrows arching up, “y’know. I don’t even know. I’m just. I dunno, having a Bad Day.”

 

Rae nods. Everyone around Gee knows about her Bad Days.

 

“Well that’s okay. I thought that Bert had gone to find you. You get her?”

 

“Yeah...” Gee’s voice is uncertain even in her own ears. She thinks of Bert, bounding in and chirping away like there’s nothing wrong in the fucking world and she just. Wants to cry. She really resents having a uterus today. “I dunno, I saw her but. A lot of...” she makes a vague gesture, flapping and clawing. Rae laughs.

 

“Noise? Insanity? Flashing?”

 

“All of that!” Gee cries, and laughs at herself, slapping a hand over her forehead. “And I just! I dunno, every time I see her she’s all over me and she makes fun of me and says this stuff and. I dunno. It makes me feel. Stupid. Last summer was. And then I just. Never heard from her, y’know? Just nothing. She said we’d hang out and we just... never did. And now she’s just appeared again and she’s even prettier and I feel like she’s laughing at me because I’m a fat loser who thinks she’s the purpose of my existence. I. Don’t know.”

 

She doesn’t know. It’s not even just a space filler like it usually is. All she can think about is Bert, the cartoon girl. Why it makes her chest ache so much when she smiles at her and touches her hands. But mostly just when she smiles at her. Gee is a freak. She needs to move out of the basement. And by ‘move out of the basement’ she doesn’t mean ‘and into the van’.

 

Bert would make a great fucking cartoon character though, shit, she never thought of that-

 

“Gee.” Rae is watching her intently, pushing her hair back from her face and pulling a face when a ringlet falls stubbornly back into her eyes. “Maybe it’s too much ‘cause like. I dunno. You and Bert were pretty tight, last tour- and I dunno why she never called, I mean. We all thought... maybe you should just. Relax, okay? I mean maybe it’s not as simple as it seems. You guys are. Great. Like. As the two of you. Y’know? You should really stop worrying. Like a Disney movie or something.”

 

Gee stares at her. Rae is lacking in articulate skill at the best of times but she can make head nor tail of that pile of word vom.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You and Bert are really great. Just don’t. Worry yourself okay? There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re over thinking this way hard. You don’t even. You’re not a loser. Or fat. Stop. Over thinking.”

 

“Over thinking what?”

 

“Whatever it is you’re over thinking!”

 

“But I don’t even know what I’m over thinking so how can I be over thinking it?”

 

“You just are! That’s all you do! Think self-damning thoughts! You think them so loud even I can hear them!” Rae flaps her hands in exasperation and manages to get the strap of her wristwatch caught on her guitar, and also her hair, scowling at it. With her finally distracted, Gee can stare at her with as much confusion as she likes, trying to summon the brain power to untangle this web of. Stupid. Where did Disney come into this, for example?

 

Anyway, as far as solving the mystery of Rae diction goes, she doesn’t get very far.

 

“Gee Way, you are a scoundrel and a rat!” Bert’s voice rolls over the noise of the band on the stage and Gee looks up as she comes towards them, ricocheting off this and that like a rubber ball until she ends up in front of Gee, hands on her little hips and her expression manic. “Why did you leave?! We were gonna get beer! I want today to be the day that Bert and Gee got matching t-shirts with their faces on them and shit! Matching tattoos! Drank all the beer! Body shots! Acid trips and hospital visits! Who’ll be my ER buddy if you’re not hanging out with me?!”

 

“Uh- tattoos?” Gee stalls on that, blinking. Beside her, Rae has finally untangled herself and is looking down at her guitar as if to say ‘I didn’t ask her to come here I wouldn’t dream of it oh god don’t climb on me’.

 

“Or at least sharpie art,” Bert says seriously, nodding at her, “though maybe you could draw something on me. I’ll get that tattooed. I want another ribs piece or maybe something on the back of my thigh. What do you think? I could get your name on me.”

 

She clambers gracelessly into Gee’s lap facing her, folding her legs around her middle and leaning their foreheads together, grabbing her hands and slapping them onto her lower back so she doesn’t fall. All at once Gee feels boxed in and nervous but it’s kind of nice, just Bert’s big eyes and her voice and the hypnotic motions of her mouth. Her dress is stretched across her open thighs and Gee discovers with a furious flush that she is indeed not wearing underwear. She forces herself to look up, biting her lip and letting herself just absorb her face for a minute. She’s missed her, her crazy dreads and long eyelashes; the way her tongue flicks against her teeth ( her voice like water) and the little scar under her lower lip where she had a lipring once for about two days. It got infected and Bert cut it out using wire cutters because she couldn’t get the bar out without pliers. Why am I so creepy? How do I know that? Oh yeah, Google. Stalking enabler of the decade.

 

“Uh...” Gee can hardly even speak. She just nods at Bert, shrugging a shoulder up. “Well I think you’re. Perfect the way you are...” she offers lamely, turning pink when Bert’s mouth turns into a warm smile. She came to find me...

 

“And you’re perfect just the way you are, little girl,” Bert replies easily, and reaches up to pet Gee’s cheek. She rubs their noses together and Gee feels like she honestly might have a heart attack. Bert is like this with everyone, she reminds herself, and is probably just sweetening you up so you buy all the beer. Still, her stomach lurches at her words, her stupid sweet face. She is such a sap. She’s also pretty sure no one else in the word gets that weird twisty feeling in their gut at being condescended.

 

“Don’t say that.”

 

“Say what?” Bert’s voice is soft now, her hands drifting up to rest on Gee’s shoulders, the little red heart on her pinkie catching her eye.

 

“That I’m. Jus’ don’t, Bert. C’mon.”

 

“Gee, don’t argue with me or I’ll tell everyone you used to be a man.”

 

“That’s an insult to men.”

 

“Gee! Why do you do that!” Bert throws her head back dramatically, and Gee has to clasp onto her tightly to stop her flopping right back off Gee’s lap and onto the ground. She leans forward again then, her eyes huge. “I have something to tell you that might put a stop to your self-deprecation.”

 

“I doubt it,” she intones in a hollow voice, but she waits to hear her out, curious. Bert doesn’t say anything, just stares at her, so Gee nudges her a bit. “What do you want to say?”

 

“I’m trying to mind beam it to you,” Bert says, her eyes narrowing in concentration, “but if that fails then I will think of an equally impressive way of saying it. Gravitas and all that.”

 

Gee waits, like she actually expects to hear Bert’s reedy little voice in her head. She raises an eyebrow after a few minutes of this. Bert has started wiggling her fingers in an ‘abra cadabra’ sort of way. She sighs and rolls her eyes.

 

“I don’t think it’s working.”

 

“It will.”

 

“Bert it’s not working. To communicate with someone telepathically you have to be like, their twin or something.”

 

“Or have a strong bond? Like you and Mikey?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do you and Mikey communicate telepathically?!” Bert beams and seems to forget whatever she wanted to tell Gee, bouncing a bit on her knee. “Oh my god you have to show me sometime!”

 

“We—what-?”

 

Gee can’t cope anymore. She really needs to get off this thought track and onto one revolving mostly around beer. So that’s what she does.

 

*

 

This show is going great. Despite her emotionally tremulous day, Gee still feels it all burn away when she gets in front of that crowd, like she’s crashing through earth’s atmosphere at a million miles a second, colliding with the flat, unwrinkled surface of the ocean and shattering it into hurling, frothing waves. She feels immersed, the pressure flooding in on her but her breath still comes hard, unbelievable and unstoppable and she can’t pull back from it; doesn’t want to. The heat and the sun are only just starting to wane but already the crowd seems to be getting their energy back, the air electric and zinging with the feverish, animal desire of so many bodies moving as one to their sound like fish writhing in a net. Gee whips her hair back and kicks over an amp. Feedback shrieks out, cutting through the thick water like a knife through butter. She sings. She screams. She breathes. Time to bleed.

 

She really fucking goes for it too, wearing a fucking skirt and those knee highs she borrowed from Lyn-Z last summer and never gave back, circling her hips and bouncing off the girls, Frankie’s tongue and Mikey’s hip, a quick kiss for Bob and even a tit grab for Rae. There’s something infectious about an all-girl rock band that seems to incite the craziest reactions from the crowd; female empowerment or sex appeal, Gee doesn’t fucking know, but she doesn’t care either. All she can think of is the blistering pace of the set and Frank’s face in her neck and the bubbles she thinks she sees swirling away into the atmosphere, spit and sweat running down her throat. She’s startled by how loud her own voice is, ripped out of her by every fucking sad thing she’s ever thought, like every lyric is a mantra. Overhead the sky ripples with dark clouds, blotting out the sun, cutting the heat out of the place. Gee thinks of water doused onto a fire.

 

As the show winds down towards the encore she glances to see Bert at the side of the stage with a couple of the other guys from The Used. Brian is there too, nodding along to the music, but it’s Bert that Gee gets struck by every time, like she’s caught on a line. She’s dancing, flinging herself around in her own little mosh pit, body making the craziest shapes, so uninhibited. Gee can hardly breathe anymore when she sees her like that.

 

*

 

“That was amazing,” Gee feels herself say it with none of her usual uncertainty or awkwardness. She high fives Rae and there’s a whole chorus of hugs and praise and at some point, a kiss on the eyebrow that takes her totally by surprise (Frank is really the wrong height to try and kiss her forehead) and then she’s bouncing off to find more beer (more beer! Yesssss!), dodging Mikey’s frown and Brian’s eye roll as she ducks out of the talent tent to find a fucking vendor.

 

“You! Pretty one! Not you Frank. Ooh burn. Gee! GEE. Oi!” Bert’s voice resounds behind her and Gee turns only to be blinded by whatever slops out of the red plastic cup Bert is thrusting at her, her eyes scrunching shut as it runs down her face. Well, the search for beer is over. Ow.

 

“Ow-! Oh my god in my fuckin’ eye-!”

 

“BEER GOGGLES,” Bert crows, then she shoves the two cups onto a nearby dolly and grabs Gee’s face, “hold still! I’m going to perform emergency eye surgery!”

 

And that’s when she sticks her tongue in Gee’s eye.

 

“Oh my god what the fuck’re you doing--!”

 

They tussle for a minute, Gee bending away and Bert keeping hold of her head like she’s got arms of metal, still mouthing over Gee’s eyebrow whilst clinging to her head like an octopus until Gee twists too far, staggering. Bert pushes all her weight on top of her and they go down in stages, crouching and then knees and then Gee slips – “oh my god I’m in a skirt!” - and then they’re on the floor, a tangle of limbs and bad hair and one unanimous yelp of panic while Bert seemingly tries to suffocate Gee with her chin. She only finally surfaces when she gets her palm against one of Bert’s tits, pinching at her nipple and then flinching when she lets out a piercing shriek of laughter. Sitting up finally, wiping her mouth, Bert beams victoriously from where she’s ended up sat on Gee’s stomach and rubs her chest. Gee feels sick. But her eye isn’t stinging. Which is something.

 

“Why-?” she tries to get her breath back to no avail, just lying there and panting, wheezing a bit. Smoker’s lungs. Fuck. “Why did- you lick- my eye-? My eyeball. Your tongue- on my eye-?”

 

“My mom used to do it when I had something in my eye when I was a baby...” Bert says, like that’s normal, “she said it’s the softest part of her body. For. Y’know. Putting in a baby’s eye. Not that you’re a baby. Unless we’re using it in the ‘hey baby’ sense of the word.”

 

Contemplating this, Gee just pats Bert’s thighs. As far as she knows, if she or Mikey had something in their eyes when she was a kid, Donna used to rinse it out with gin and tonic. Bert looks suddenly earnest, her lipstick smeared and her dress falling off one narrow shoulder. “I was trying to save you, Gina-gee. I didn’t want you to go blind because I threw beer in your eye.”

 

Gee considers, just panting some more and then nodding, wiping her eye a bit and blinking at her black fingers. “No. That’s okay.”

 

She snorts to herself then. What is her life. Lesbianism, fame (almost, almost), pretty girl’s tongues in all the wrong holes and the same awkward hang ups she had in high school. Bert just beams.

 

“You got eyeliner down your face, Geeeee-na-na-na-na.”

 

“You got eyeliner down your face, Roberta,” Gee murmurs. Bert giggles at her name and puts her hands over her face.

 

“Dude. You Roberta’d me.”

 

“And I’ll do it again,” Gee says seriously, “Roberta Edwina-!”

 

“DON’T.” Bert slaps her hands over her mouth and giggles louder, shrill and awkward. Behind them, Gee can see Frank watching with Mikey and Rae, like Gee getting her eyeball tongued is a spectator sport. They’re laughing. Assholes.

 

When Bert pulls her hands away, Gee smiles and starts to sit up, grinning when Bert doesn’t move. Her hands come to rest on Gee’s shoulders where she’s still wearing her stage gear and she smiles, the expression almost sad, as she smoothes her hands down Gee’s arms; looks down between them and makes an appreciative noise at her skirt.

 

“You got great pins, Gee,” she says with reverence. Gee just rolls her eyes, smiling at Bert tugging at the collar of her shirt; her tie. Warmth kind of blossoms in her chest at the words though, her face heating up.

 

“Shut up,” she says quietly. This nice, heavy zing is settling between them, post-show buzz slowing and the cooling air making everything dusky and pale. Bert is wiping her mouth slowly on the back of her hand, rubbing her lipstick away, but she’s still looking at Gee, that sly smile curling at the corner of her mouth. The muted lighting is suddenly just right for her heavy eye makeup. Oh my god stop being such a geek for just ten minutes.

 

“I’m jus’ sayin’...” Bert reaches back, putting her hands on Gee’s bare thighs and squeezing, giving her a huge grin, “that you should totally let me check out your underpants because I could only see like, what, eighty percent of them on stage?”

 

Gee blinks, then hits her.

 

“You’re a dick.”

 

“What-? No I’m not-!”

 

“Yes you are. Oh my god. You fuckin’ know I fuckin’ hate it when you make fun of me-”

 

“I’m not making fun!”

 

“You fucking are! You do it all the time! You know I’m in fuckin’ love with you so you think it’s fuckin’ funny to make fun of me--”

 

Gee doesn’t even know what’s started this. All she knows is that she’s really fucking angry suddenly, and that she wants nothing more than to go back to the van and put her jeans back on and forget this whole fucking day. She shoves Bert back, getting to her knees, trying to dust herself off. Bert grabs at her.

 

“Where are you going-? What the fuck are you talking about?” her eyes are huge. Her eyelashes touch her eyebrows. Gee wants to bite them off.

 

“You know! I fucking spent all last summer fucking mooning over you and spending every minute with you and all you do is you let me fucking bounce off your fucking beauty and bask in the glow of your fucking awesome and then you fucked off and I haven’t heard from you until today when you decided to grace me with your presence. Fuck you, stop fucking exploiting my feelings for you when it fucking suits. You never fucking called me and you said you would. You said.”

 

She gets up. Bert just stares at her, expression unfathomable. Gee doesn’t fucking care; just turns and stalks back towards the van. She grabs her beer on the way.

 

*

When she gets back, she’s not really sure what she was so mad about. Suddenly all she can think of is how every nice word out of Bert’s mouth is followed by a bout of asshole-ism, and how painful it’s been wondering whether last year’s drinking and cuddling and that one drunk kiss that Bert didn’t even remember anyway meant anything at all, because Gee was sure it did, she was so sure. They’d dressed up as Batman and Robin for Christ sakes. Bert had looked under the cubicle door while Gee was peeing at a service station and she hadn’t even fucking minded. She had been totally convinced that it was love.

 

But then. Nothing. She’d given Bert her number- because she’d asked for it no less – and that was that. She should have asked for hers, sure, but that would have meant looking desperate, and being desperate, and that was just fucking sad. Though she’s never been unfortunate in the love department - a fact which constantly amazes her given her awesome track record and the varying measurements of her fat-to-pretty ratio – she can’t help but think that they missed something important. That Bert should have been on that track record. As soon as possible.

 

The van door opens. Gee looks up and blinks at Mikey, her face impassive as always. She gets in the van and comes to sit opposite her on the back seat, folding her long legs and then fixing her with a blank stare. Gee raises an eyebrow.

 

“Can I help you? Have you lost your emotion chip again or something, robo-Mikey?”

 

“No, I’ve lost my ‘patience for my fucktarded sister’ chip,” Mikey retorts. Gee opens her mouth to reply, then closes it. She obviously isn’t finished, “I thought it might be in here, with your reason for throwing such a massive piss-fit back there.”

 

Gee feels her hackles rise. She looks at Mikey, incredulous.

 

“Are you seriously here to tell me off for upsetting her when she hasn’t been in contact with me at all?” she breathes. Mikey rolls her eyes.

 

“No, you idiot, I’m here to tell you off for sabotaging something that was going perfectly well. Yeah, she never got in touch. Neither did you. You coulda asked for her number off Brian anytime. They’ve been recording. We’ve all been busy, Gee.”

 

“Yeah but-!” Gee bites her lip and feels that feeling in her chest again like when she was a teenager and Mikey would beat her at videogames and then refuse to let her get a head start on the next round. “I- I didn’t- she wouldn’t have picked up anyway-!”

 

 

“Yeah, I know, you think she doesn’t like you.” Mikey runs a hand back through her hair and watches Gee, apparently trying to reign in her impatience. “But she obviously does.”

 

“She makes fun of me.” Gee points out sourly.

 

“No she doesn’t. She says things to you. Nice things.”

 

“And then she makes fun of me.”

 

“Yeah well, you’re kind of a loser.”

 

Gee stops. She scowls. Mikey shrugs. “You are.”

 

Still not knowing what to say, Gee just lets the silence dangle. She frowns down at her lap for a long time, picking at a bit of gum that’s somehow gotten attached to the bottom of her shoe. Mikey watches her, then digs out some hand sanitizer wordlessly when Gee flicks the gum onto the van floor. Gee uses it, but she still scowls. The soundless air gapes between them.

 

For once, Mikey breaks. It seems to surprise even her, because she looks a little bit disgruntled when she finally says, “Gee, I know you think Bert is making fun of you when she says stuff about you having nice legs and stuff, but... I genuinely think that she means it. I really do.”

 

Gee keeps her head down, feeling the tops of her ears go red. She hates this. She wants to just go and hide. Mikey waits, to see if her words invoke any kind of reaction, then tries again.

 

“You really are pretty. I know you don’t think so but. You are. Whatever you look like. I mean whatever you’re not a size zero. Who the fuck is?”

 

Gee still doesn’t answer. The queen of skinny hipsters is sitting in front of her asking her what the fuck is with fashion sizing. She wrinkles her nose, picking at her nails now instead. She feels Mikey shift and looks up when the van door opens.

 

“Where are you going-?”

 

“Away from you.” Mikey gets out of the van and scowls at her, a slight drawing of her brows that Gee almost recoils from. “You never listen to anyone! You don’t even want to accept that someone might fucking like you because you’re too busy being fucking Robert fucking Smith about everything you asshole. Maybe it’s about time you started on with your fucking ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ before you get back onto ‘Disintegration’, huh? Jesus.”

 

With that she slams the van door shut and stalks off into the rapidly darkening festival grounds. Gee watches her go, then curls back up in the back seat and sighs.

 

Fucking. Mikey.

 

She waits for a bit, fidgeting and peering out across the dusky clearing, kind of quietly hopeful that someone else might come to her, comfort her or, vindicate her or something. The shadows of the trees outside stretch long and gnarly and she shivers, too inexplicably nervous suddenly to smoke like she might normally, or move, or even breathe. An abrupt, nagging urge that outside equals danger grips her from just staring out at the inky sky and she imagines herself cracking open the window and water starting to spew inside in thick curtains, bringing reams of frightened fish, starting a whirling current around her, flooding to the ceiling of the van until she can’t keep her head above the water. She chews her lip and picks the varnish off her nails for what seems like hours, but no one comes. Mikey probably told them to leave her to stew. That bitch.

 

Without even really thinking, Gee digs out her iPod and starts to scroll around on it, head down. The white light from the screen glints off the tinted windows and Gee slowly starts to feel like the light could somehow close her in, away from everything outside the van, just her and the dirty polyester seats and the faint smell of unwashed girl; a little blue light as the van floats deeper down into the depths, away from everything.

 

She puts on her headphones then; turns the music up loud as it will go and closes her eyes, hunching down low onto her back, knees up, feet against the far door. She pulls a jacket – she’s not sure whose – off the back of the front seat and uses it as a makeshift blanket, curling into herself and just listening to the music, trying to make some sense of everything.

 

Eventually, shark cage back in place, she drifts off, thinking sleep-mutated thoughts of glowing sea creatures and red lipstick.

*

 

“Gina..? Gee?”

 

She wakes up to fingers stroking through her hair and words muffled through the sound of her headphones. She feels like maybe while she was asleep, the water forced its way in through the windows. She blinks her eyes open slowly and is almost terrified to see Bert, dripping wet and bleakly lit by one lone bulb in the ceiling of the van. She swallows thickly and mutters.

 

“Are we the only ones left?”

 

Bert’s face doesn’t change except for the slight twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth. She pushes Gee’s headphones off her ears gently and everything goes abruptly quiet, except for a rumbling, smattering sound, like the uneven beat of a drum.

 

“It’s raining,” Bert explains, when Gee looks confused. “Everyone’s hanging in buses and stuff. I thought I’d come find you.”

 

Gee watches as a droplet of water runs from the end of Bert’s hair, down until it drops against the pale skin of her arm. She wets her lips.

 

“Oh.”

 

“S’at okay?” Bert is still watching her. Her lipstick is gone and her make up has faded too, but she still looks beautiful, glowing and perfect. Her pale dress has gone transparent in the rain. She’s not wearing a fucking bra. Gee balks.

 

“Uh-”

 

“I didn’t mean to upset you before,” Bert interrupts. She bites her lower lip nervously, leaning down close, more water flicking across Gee’s face. “I mean- I meant what I said- you’re- you’re gorgeous but- I didn’t mean to make you sad. I didn’t mean to. Make you think I was kidding you. I. I think you’re. I mean it, when I say it. Like, that lipstick still looks totally gorgeous. That wasn’t a cunning ploy you make you look like... a really hot person or something. Though I know that would be your worst nightmare.”

 

Gee feels herself start to squirm. She rubs her eyes a bit. “Bert, I-”

 

“No—I just. I know I didn’t call you, and I know you expected me to but. I couldn’t. I thought, I was worried you might not answer or you were yanking my chain or humouring me or something because I’m a disgusting, dirty little shit from Utah and you’re so fucking. Look at you. I thought you were just trying to make me feel better when I asked you for your number. And then you never asked for mine and I thought – I just thought that you didn’t want me to call, that you’d just said it to shut me up- and then we kissed that night and then the next morning you didn’t remember and-!”

 

“Wait wait wait. No. Stop.” Gee sits up a bit at that, eyes disbelieving. She blinks. “You remember?”

 

It’s Bert’s turn to balk. Her lip curls with incredulity.

 

“Are you fucking kidding me? That was like the best fucking night- like- since I started the band! It was the fucking- I didn’t know if you remembered the next day-!”

 

“So you didn’t say anything...” Gee finishes weakly. Bert nods, brows drawn. Gee just stares at her. She can’t fucking believe this. “So... you thought. That I didn’t like you?”

 

“Yeah!” Bert cries, “I mean come on! You are so fucking nice, and you’re so sweet and you’ve got this fucking mission, y’know? This life saving, holier than thou crap going on and I thought you thought I was just some creeper, and that you were just being nice to me. Like that loser at school who the cool person takes pity on y’know?”

 

Silence seeps into the space after Bert’s outburst. Gee stares at her, unable to believe, unable to even start to comprehend that this is happening. Her head whirs for a minute, thoughts all crashing together as her self-depreciative inner monologue is derailed, causing massive delays and cancellations all over the line. Then something pings and she presses her lips together, wetting them.

 

“Bert... I. I really like you,” she starts weakly. The words jar out, brash and unrefined and Gee wishes she’d had some time to write them down before she just vomited them all out; write her a love song or something. Her ‘Just Like Heaven’. “I thought you were just being nice to me. I waited all over Christmas- I told my mom you might come for dinner! I- I thought you just. Were laughing at me or something.”

 

She raises her head to meet Bert’s eyes and is greeted by a smile. Her own mouth curls up at one corner, uncertain. Bert’s eyes are so blue.

 

The pause stretches. Gee feels herself starting to grin. Bert snorts softly and then leans down.

 

“Can we make out now? Yes? Say yes. Say yes now.”

 

Gee closes her eyes and laughs, face turning crimson. Inwardly, she is still pretty much expecting this to be a joke, like some kind of fucking eel is going to dart out of Bert’s mouth and snatch the words back into the cave of her throat. She wrinkles her nose.

 

“Yes.”

 

Bert kisses her. She’s not especially gentle, or at least not the movie-gentle Gee expected, but her fingers suddenly appear on either side of Gee’s jaw, digging softly under the hinge of bone as their mouths move together slowly. Gee flails a bit with her hands, unsure what to do with them, and Bert lets go of her face momentarily to pull Gee’s arms around her neck; grabs her face again and presses her lips back to Gee’s with the air of someone who has been waiting a minute too long and kisses her harder. Gee tries not to smile inanely; focuses instead on the tip of Bert’s tongue swiping hotly along her lower lip, and her gentle hands and thin fingers and she whines, shoulders dropping. Bert sighs in approval and pushes her tongue into her mouth when her lips part, trailing the tip along the roof of her mouth, against the crescent of her teeth and then along the centre of her tongue. They seem to lean in sync, Gee slowly sinking back against the door and Bert shifting over her carefully, settling over her hips. Gee responds with a shudder, trying to match her movements; trying to keep up the hot, wet curl of their tongues and the slide of their lips. Her fingers twist slowly into Bert’s hair, damp and warm. Warmth flares low in her stomach.

 

“I have wanted to kiss you for so long,” Bert murmurs, and the heat pitches slightly, intensifies. Gee breathes out hard between their mouths and Bert’s thumb swipes across her lower lip, touching at the tip of her tongue. “Want to kiss you every fucking time I see you. Your fucking teeth and your tongue and your stupid crooked mouth. I can’t believe you thought...” she kisses her again; catches her lower lip between her teeth and drags softly on the skin. “I fucking love you, you idiot.”

 

Heart lurching, Gee just pulls back, panting and wide eyed. Bert raises her eyebrows, confused, and Gee lets out another harsh breath.

 

“I. Yeah, I love you too,” she mutters. Bert nods, pressing her lips into a thin line, and Gee can tell she’s trying not to smirk; not so say something smug. She grins and answers another kiss, relaxing a little now. Bert’s hands slide low to her hips, fingers smoothing up under the fabric, and Gee starts at the contact a little; mewls when Bert shushes her and curls her arm around her neck to keep her close, their foreheads together.

 

“Love you,” she repeats, and her hand glides up against Gee’s stomach, smooth and cool. Despite herself, Gee feels her stomach cave in reflex, her shoulders jolting up. Bert noses against her, then murmurs, “Gee lemme touch. Please. I’ve not been allowed to touch this entire time and you’ve been walking around with a fucking body suit and multiple layers of bear fur on and then occasionally I get a little flash of your fucking tummy, or your fucking legs, oh my god, and then you put on another layer of bear fur and I get the girl equivalent of blue balls.”

 

Gee blinks for a second, then she breaks into laughter, putting a hand over her face.

 

“Oh yeah and what’s that?” she breathes. Bert grins knowingly.

 

“Blue vagina?”

 

“Blue clit?” Gee suggests, grin splitting her face. Bert giggles and shakes her head.

 

“Whatever it is. It’s what I get. You, Queen of the fucking Eskimos.”

 

“That’s racist, they don’t like being called Eskimos,” Gee informs her, tone indignant, “they’re Inuits.”

 

Bert raises an eyebrow. She leans in close to Gee again.

 

“... Can you tell them to stop being Inuit this conversation?”

 

“That’s not even funny.”

 

“I know, I’m just trying really hard to think of good Inuit puns and I can’t because I have blue vagina or whatever!”

 

Gee snorts and rolls her eyes, giving up. She holds her arms up so her hands flop back against the cold window pain, feeling the rain thrumming against them. She would worry about lightning but they’re in a rubber-wheeled vehicle and that’s stupid.

 

“Okay then, get Inuit,” she sighs. Bert snorts.

 

“Your pun was even worse than-”

 

“Do you wanna talk about Inuit puns or do you wanna have sex with me?”

 

Bert looks surprised. Like. Really surprised. Gee rolls her eyes.

 

“Yeah yeah, Gee looks like a blushing fuckin’ virgin.” She smiles crookedly; kisses Bert again softly and strokes at her cheek. “Been waiting for-fuckin’-ever. Please. Yeah?”

 

“Hff, yeah, I’m totally gonna say no,” Bert mutters, but she’s smiling. She leans close and touches at Gee’s face then, thumb brushing over her lips again, her breaths coming a little harder. She leans down and kisses her, shifting to get between her thighs, hand finding Gee’s knee, starting to push down one of her kneehighs. Gee giggles when she pauses to unlace her boots, pulling away and muttering at the knot, fighting ineffectively until Gee says, helpfully-

 

“It’s a zipper-”

 

“That’s fucking cheating-!”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

Bert suppresses a little chime of laughter and takes off her boots, dropping them into the footwell with her socks. She bites her lip, smoothing her palms up Gee’s white calves, touching with a weird sort of reverence that makes Gee blush to observe. Her face is so intent, her pale eyes so fucking focused on what she’s doing. Gee can feel the knot of nervousness in her stomach unwinding, replaced with the hot thrum of want she seldom fucking feels anymore for anything else but the memory of a kiss on the roof of the Used’s bus last summer. Bert’s fingers trail up the inside of her thigh, cool and dry, and she closes her eyes and makes a little noise of self-restraint.

 

“Fuck, Gee. You’re. Fucking unreal. I. I’m trying to think of words that would justify what I’m feeling but like, none of them are big enough. And we still haven’t got that mind reading thing down. Which. Y’know. Sucks.”

 

Gee doesn’t say anything, just flushes and refrains from arguing with her. There's a minute where neither of them move, just breathing, pressed against one another, but then Gee lifts her head to kiss Bert's bare shoulder, hand sliding up her arm, fingers curling into her damp hair and pulling her down close. She wonders briefly if it’s too fast, too much, but then she thinks of the ache in her gut and how now it’s gone from anxiety to anticipation and she relaxes, kissing Bert hard and arching under the warm weight of her. This feels right. It feels like it's been too long coming.

 

Breaking away to brush her lips and tongue against her throat, Bert smoothes her hands up Gee’s thighs again to her hips, fingers lingering at the elastic of her underwear. At Gee’s little whine of uncertainty, she kisses her mouth again hard, carding her fingers up to grab at a handful of her hair and hold her close; crowd her back against the van door completely and slide a hand over her chest, thumbing over her nipple through her shirt. Gee appreciates it, the certainty of the contact, the little anchoring points, and she rewards her with a tiny, breathless noise and Gee grabbing at her shoulders weakly, hips arching off the seat, her embarrassing fucking noises reverberating through their lips. Bert groans in response and Gee feels surprised warmth flood through her, uninhibited by her nervousness. Bert is fucking bringing it.

 

“Bert- shit,” she breathes, biting at her lower lip and then kissing weakly at the corner of her mouth, letting out a stuttered breath. Bert sighs quietly, pinching gently at Gee’s nipple, wetting her lips when the action elicits another mewl.

 

"Yeah," she agrees, rubbing harder over the peak, faltering on another breath as Gee jolts, her eyes closing and her hands fumbling before curling tightly into the front of Bert’s dress, the fabric gaping at her chest. She's panting quietly already, spine bracketing, and she arches up again when Bert abruptly slides both hands down to touch over the curve of her hips, like she can’t stop herself, can’t help it. Gee opens her eyes to look at her as Bert covers her lower lip with her teeth, smoothing her hand up her thigh again, and Gee just swallows, breath hitching in anticipation. They exchange nervous smiles, and then Bert leans down to calm her with another kiss. Gee hums, arms winding around her neck, and then Bert is pushing up her skirt and giving her a wolfish grin - that one Gee fucking loves so much - before she’s sliding Gee’s knickers down around her thighs (Gee is really fucking relieved when the red tide hasn’t cancelled her plans of sex for the evening), glancing up at her and visibly relaxing when she's still smiling, nervously maybe, but smiling nonetheless. "Y'okay?"

 

"Yeah," Gee breathes out shakily but nods, "I'm fine. I'm honestly fine."

 

"Good." Bert doesn't need much more of an okay than that, it seems. She bites her lip, looking over Gee in a way that should make her recoil or hyperventilate but only sends another shiver through her. “Fuck. Been waiting to get my fuckin’ hands on you. Jesus. And now I can.”

 

Gee swallows; can’t take her eyes off Bert as she talks, feeling her trail fingers over the slight round of her stomach and then down between her thighs, tips skimming the rise of her mound before she slides them down against her clit, rubbing in slow circles and making Gee arch and gasp, unable to take her eyes off her. She looks like fucking art, with her dress strap falling off one shoulder and the curve of her breast partially exposed, smile serene as she presses their noses together gently and works her fingers a little harder, biting her lip at the little peak in Gee's breathing, before slipping them down along the hot channel of flesh until she’s pushing into the wetness of her cunt and sliding two fingers into her. Gee arches, jolted into silence by it, eyes closed and jaw slack. Pressing an open mouthed kiss to her throat, Bert curls them in deep; starts to work her fingers in and out, and Gee is fucking breathless in seconds, overwhelmed by the feeling, by Bert fucking all over her, the scent of her hair and the feeling of her skin and the slick, wet slide of her fingers, slipping in and out of her easily. She feels Bert curl her fingers up and make a firm beckoning motion and she fails to stifle an all out moan at the flood of pleasure, the sound shattering the thick quiet of the van, the still air outside.

 

"Fuck-!"

 

"Mm--" Bert fucks her harder with her fingers, panting softly and cursing when Gee's fingers clench on her shoulders, digging little pink crescents into the flesh there. She pauses then; takes a moment to pull her fingers free, slide her ring finger into her for a moment and then repeat before pushing all three back in together. Gee is trembling now, panting and arching and her thighs are shaking, heels slipping on the bench seat when her hips kick up weakly, wanting deeper, harder, faster, not knowing how to ask but with a little chorus of pleas and moans. Bert complies like she can read her mind, cradling her close, driving her fingers harder and harder until Gee feels that familiar crescendo of thick warmth blooming out like a mushroom cloud between her hips. She tenses beneath her, pelvis tipping and her stomach caving and when Bert moans she knows it’s at that tell-tale spasm of her cunt around her fingers, hot and frantic and close. Bert tips her thumb up against her clit, circling it roughly, breathing fast and damp against her neck - and then Gee's coming, hot and hard, and she cries out as it pulses through her in long, sweet waves, hips working it out in circles as she tightens around Bert's fingers.

 

"Fu-uck...!"

 

It tails off and she relaxes, shuddering and panting and then giggling weakly when Bert starts nosing into her throat, only stopping the motions of her fingers when Gee pushes at her wrist. "Fuck-- stop-nn... "

 

She feels Bert smile against her throat, wriggling a little on top of her, tucking her hands up under Gee’s shirt, fingers still wet. Trying not to mentally cringe at that, Gee wraps her arms around her. “Fuck.”

 

"S'okay-?" Bert murmurs, kissing at the corner of her mouth. Gee smirks, knees coming together either side of Bert's hips, and kisses her hard, tongues sliding together wetly. She pulls away and nods breathlessly.

 

"Yeah. Seriously. Just... yeah. God..."

 

Smoothing a hand back through Bert’s hair, she takes a moment to regulate her breathing, body thrumming with content and lazy warmth. She stretches softly, then starts to sit up, grinning when Bert makes a noise of annoyance.

 

“Who says we’re done cuddling-?” she demands, and Gee just giggles as she pushes her backwards off her, then down, shifting to switch their position until she’s between Bert’s knees. She hums and kisses her, murmuring.

 

“I say.”

 

With that she moves down to unpop the buttons of Bert’s dress that do nothing to protect her modesty, pulling it open and smoothing a cupping her palm against the slope of her breast until she can bring her mouth to it; close her lips over the rise of Bert’s nipple and suck, tongue working over the flesh thoroughly. She feels Bert stiffen underneath her, breaths coming hard, and then she curses softly.

 

“Fuck, Gee.”

 

“Mm.” Gee drags her teeth gently over Bert’s nipple; closes her mouth over it again and whines as it hardens under the swipe of her tongue, a stream of words filling the air above them as Bert tips her head back. Gee glances up at the slope of her throat and feels her stomach throb again, tight with the need to make this as good for Bert as it was for her; to prove that she’s not as fucking ‘nice’ as Bert seems to think. Her other hand pushes between them, under Bert’s dress as she moves to lick over her other nipple, hand finding the smooth skin of her thigh and dragging up. She trails her fingers along the line of Bert’s cunt; feels the wetness of her arousal on her wrist where it’s against the fucking inside of her thighs and she can hardly breathe at the thought, looking up at Bert, mouth dropping open. She just fucking looks back at her, eyes warm and pleased. She grins.

 

“W-why do you look so fuckin’ surprised, huh-?” she breathes. Gee doesn’t know what to say; can only fucking kiss her again and then pull away, feeling blown open and overwhelmed and like she’s realising for the first time what’s actually fucking going on here. Bert isn’t playing games with her and she doesn’t fucking feel sorry for her. She. She can’t.

 

“Fuck, Bert...” Gee hears her voice and it takes her a moment to realise it was her doing the talking. She strokes up over Bert’s clit slowly, leaning back on her knees to push her dress up, and Bert’s body bridges off the seat, her arms bracketing her head as she grabs at the edge of the window above her, fingers slipping. She moans, so fucking helpless and open, and Gee can’t even tease her like she wants to; can’t do anything but duck down between her thighs, grabbing gently at one and pinning it against the back of the seat as she tips her chin and then pushes her mouth flush against Bert’s cunt, licking into her with long, deep strokes of her tongue.

 

“Fuck-!” Bert can hardly fucking stay still, hips tipping, her heel slipping against the edge of the seat until Gee grabs her other thigh and pulls it over her shoulder, wrapping her arm under and around and holding her there, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of her leg. She licks her harder, mouth and cheeks wet already and heat throbbing between her hips at the taste and fucking smell and the sound of Bert keening above her, and then she shifts her chin up to close her lips over Bert’s clit; suck slow and hard and flick her tongue against her time and time again.

 

She can’t be sure, but she’s pretty sure Bert loses her shit right then, fumbling to grab at the hem of her dress and pull it right up, her other hand knotting tight and sudden into Gee’s hair and holding her there. She groans, not faltering in her motions until Bert’s free hand slips down again, the hand in her hair jolting her away a little as she mutters, “Wait,” before sliding her index and middle finger down either side of her clit and spreading herself open for Gee, “now—please- please Gee come on baby...”

 

Even with her insistent hands pulling her mouth back against her, Gee doesn’t need to be asked. She moans weakly against her, dragging her tongue wet and flat against the opening of Bert’s cunt, tipping her face until her nose touches the tendon of Bert’s thigh, standing out in high relief, and she can slide her tongue deep into her and curl it a few times until Bert’s thighs are shaking and she’s tugging on her hair, voice coming out as an almost-sob. “Gee-! Gee- come on, come on-!”

 

Finally doing as she’s told, Gee moves up again; presses a kiss to the back of Bert’s hand where her fingers are still splayed and then moves down to flick her tongue over the exposed nub of her clit. Bert shudders hard, breathing out an encouragement, and Gee gives in to her; laps at her clit hard and fast and, after a few moment’s thought, slides two fingers of the hand that’s not holding Bert’s thigh against her neck into the tight heat of her cunt, breathing out hard through her mouth when Bert moans and starts to mutter faster, little strings of expletives that Gee can’t quite make out; can only read the twitches of her hips and drive her fingers slowly; watch her knuckles whiten and the slow draw of the muscles in her stomach until suddenly Bert’s hand is tugging down roughly on Gee’s hair, pulling her mouth flush against her clit as she comes, grinding out every little spasm of her orgasm against Gee’s willing tongue.

 

She let’s go finally, panting and swearing, and Gee looks up from between her thighs, sliding her fingers free and smiling when their eyes meet.

 

“Jesus Christ.” Bert breathes. She sits up shakily, grabbing at the hem of her dress and using it to wipe Gee’s mouth, laughing weakly. “Fuck. Jesus. Sorry. God.”

 

“No- s’okay,” Gee lets her even so; knows all about feeling weirdly guilty about leaving your bodily fluids on someone else’s face after using their mouth as a means to get off. She leans into her, their foreheads together, and swipes her tongue along the swell of her lower lip, the taste of Bert still there, sharp and salty. “God. You’re just...”

 

She doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to. Outside it’s still dark but the rain has stopped, a sudden quiet having settled over everything. It feels like they’re at the bottom of the ocean. She likes it.

 

“I love you,” Bert says suddenly, dispersing the silence and her strangled thoughts. Gee smiles at her, finding her hand and lacing their fingers together. She beams, face heating up.

 

“Yeah. I love you too. Obviously.”

 

They don’t comment on it, either of them, which is a miracle. It’s just there now, warm and pleasantly heavy in Gee’s chest; the acknowledgement. She’s loved.

 

“I’m tired now,” Bert says after a moment. She looks at Gee and smiles.

 

“Me too. Y’wanna get dressed again and take a nap?”

 

“That actually sounds like the best idea ever.”

 

“Mmm.” Gee nods in agreement and the two of them shuffle around in the back of the van for a minute, pulling on and fastening up and just generally making themselves a bit more decent. Eventually they curl against one another, lay down against the back of the seat. Bert leans over and pulls a blanket out of the trunk, pulling it over them and arranging Gee’s arms so she’s encased within them. Gee lets her, amused, and settles. There’s a pause, then she says, consideringly, “How did you know where I was?”

 

“Asked Mikey. She said something about you needing a Suzie Sioux. At least I think that’s what she said. It’s hard to tell when I’m too busy trying to determine whether she’s the next incarnation of The Terminator or not.”

 

Gee laughs softly. She wrinkles her nose.

 

“So many fucking Cure references today, man.”

 

“Yeah, probably because that’s all you listen to at the minute. You had it on so loud when I got in here that I thought you had speakers on, not headphones. I could hear every word.”

 

Gee pauses thoughtfully at that, then smiles and shrugs.

 

“I really like The Cure.”

 

“Yeah, so do I.” Bert gives her a little grin. She nudges at her. “What’s your favourite album?”

 

Considering it, Gee looks at Bert; her bright smile and how fucking pretty she looks. How she’s not just pretty in a way that makes Gee insanely jealous anymore; more like she’s pretty and Gee can touch her whenever she wants. She hums a bit, reaching out and cupping Bert’s cheek in her palm.

 

“Mm, I thought it was ‘Disintegration’ for a while, to be honest,” she says, smiling when Bert noses into her wrist; presses a kiss to the heel of her hand, “but I’m not that sad anymore. It doesn’t really fit.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Bert grins. “What fits now then?”

 

Gee grins widely. She wets her lips.

 

“’Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me,’” she answers.

 

And Bert does.


End file.
